This article seems to say that it covers only digital items that have an always online requirement.

https://www.gamefile.news/p/california-ab2426-crew-call-of-duty

So i think offline games don’t need the warning, but online games, steaming movies, etc do need the warning.

Edit:

I looked a bit further and found the bill text:

https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB2426#99INT

(4) This section does not apply to any of the following:

© Any digital good that is advertised or offered to a person that the seller cannot revoke access to after the transaction, which includes making the digital good available at the time of purchase for permanent offline download to an external storage source to be used without a connection to the internet.

This exception clearly allows for user downloadable installer for a game with offline functionality. But consoles, steam, etc where you don’t get a standalone installer, they look like they will need the warning on all titles.

In Australia they’ve bumped it from au$25 (with periodic discounts to au$12.50) to au$60.

Thats a 140% increase!

No mention of the recent changes to classify simulated gambling R18+.

Thats going to cause some titles to cut content to avoid the higher rating.

It had a public github repo so I would expect there to be copies in the wild.

Average score was 76 placing it in the 63rd percentile.

https://opencritic.com/game/16790/star-wars-outlaws/charts

Its the kind of middle of the pack results that show its not bad but its not great either. License fans with realistic expectations will probably have a good time.

Oh! So that treaty somewhat standardizes PA patent rights across participating nations and allows a the patent office to act as a agent in procuring international patents but doesn’t actually offers a “globally” recognized patent in the way that the Berne Convention does for copyright.

So it looks like the infamous loading screen minigame patent was only registered in Japan and the USA. If I have this right it would not have been a barrier to implementing a loading screen minigame anywhere else (e.g. PAL regions in their entirety)?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5718632

The cycle I see is aligned with the console generations.

For the first half of the gen the console proposition is reasonably modern and some people with older PCs will pick up a console instead of a new PC build.

For the second half of the gen the console proposition is dated and PCs can achieve the same power for a modest price, or exceed that power for a few dollars more. Some people will switch to PC either as an upgrade or when their current console fails.

Then the cycle continues every 6 or 7 years.

Isn’t this the scenario the Patent Cooperation Treaty was intended to resolve?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty

LOUD!

That can be a problem for games that skew older too.

Any games with a companion with have them brainstorming solutions the second you enter a puzzle room. Its exactly what I would be doing if I was in the companion’s shoes but as a player it can be frustrating when you haven’t been given a chance to even look around.

* glares pointedly at uncharted *

Thankfully these patents both expired in 2017:

https://patents.google.com/patent/JP3350773B2/en
https://patents.google.com/patent/JP3295771B2/en

This a been in the courts for a while, does anyone know which titles were found to be infringing?

My lay understanding was that patents were invalidated if prior art could be found before the application date?

If that was true then no patent Nintendo applied for after palwold demonstrated its use of a technique would hold water. This demonstration would be easy to verify as occurring at the time of release of preview videos, the games release, content patches, etc

So I must be wrong if they think JP7545191B1 might be the one.

These games include Ultra Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter X Tekken, Lost Planet 2, and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City.

most expensive products in the industry.

Counter point: PS5 Pro is au$1200 vs Switch OLED for au$540

Penalties will vary between states but for NSW the maximum fines for selling games with restricted classifications to underage customers are:

https://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/cfacgea1995596/s30.html
https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/cpa1999278/s17.html

These seem steep enough to encourage compliance.

But G, PG, or M? The customers age is none of their business and I wouldn’t expect them to take an interest.

Edit: to put those penalties in perspective the sentencing for supplying alcohol to minors scales up a maximum of $11k and/or 12 months incarceration.
https://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/la2007107/s117.html

While for tobacco the maximum penalties are:

https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/pha2008178/s22.html

So it looks like it is penalized significantly more lightly than alcohol or tobacco.

But basically, its not a retroactive re rating of any game unless the game is patched to add in simulated gambling or loot boxes.

This FAQ say titles will need reclassification if the modify their loot box payouts, so any ongoing live service game will get an updated classification eventually.

Q. Would changing the rewards within an existing paid loot box, cause the video game to require reclassification?

A. Adding new rewards to existing paid loot boxes constitutes adding new in-game purchases linked to elements of chance and may cause a video game to become unclassified and require reclassification depending on the original classification of the video game.

https://igea.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/INFRA6558-Australian-Classifications-–-Fact-sheet-–-industry-FAQs_v6.pdf

The clapback:

We have received notice of this lawsuit and will begin the appropriate legal proceedings and investigations into the claims of patent infringement.

At this moment, we are unaware of the specific patents we are accused of infringing upon, and we have not been notified of such details.

https://www.pocketpair.jp/news/news16

One of the perks of backwards compatibility on the current consoles is that console gamers can still buy and play anything they have released over the last 10 years.

To be honest M can still be sold to anyone of any age. But the text descriptions usually highlight the more highly classified content so sports games with loot boxes will see changes like this:

if I spend money for a currency in a gacha game, and then trade that currency for some character pulls, does that count? […] Essentially, I paid for a character, and I still get a character, I just don’t know which one I will get.

Yes. A real money purchase that leads to randomised rewards counts.